Our Blog

We are thrilled to share that Parneshia Jones—author of the collection of poems Vessel, published in 2015 by Milkweed Editions—has been appointed the next president of Cave Canem’s board of directors. Cave Canem was founded by Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady in 1996 to remedy the under-representation and isolation of African American poets in the literary landscape. The nonprofit’s extensive programming and publications have greatly impacted the American literary landscape, and include three book prizes delivered in partnership with five prestigious presses, fellowships, community-based workshops for emerging and established poets, and a vast range of events, seminars, and lectures.

This month, Celia examines three works of fiction addressing the body horror of pregnancy and childbirth.

We are delighted to announce the acquisition of a second collection of poems by the late Max Ritvo, the celebrated author of Four Reincarnations, which the New York Times Book Review called “good-humored, appealingly sly, and surprisingly whimsical.”

When Milkweed Editions invited my thoughts on cover design for Virgin, I sent them a Pinterest page with visual influences: Victorian pharmaceutical advertisements, turn of the century women’s magazine covers, art nouveau color palettes, autochromes, and vintage illustrations of flora and fauna (mostly cacti)—all motifs of highly polarized femininity that I was trying to capture and reconsider.

We are pleased to announce that Jos Charles has been named one of five winners of the 2017 National Poetry Series. feeld was selected by Fady Joudah and will be published in September 2018 by Milkweed Editions.

We are thrilled to announce the publication of two very special books today: Alex Lemon’s Feverland: A Memoir in Shards and William Brewer’s National Poetry Series-winning collection of poems I Know Your Kind. Both share a common impulse to meet pain and stigma with beauty and art.

Alex Lemon’s new memoir, Feverland, is a fragmented exploration of trauma, the fallibility of the body, and the joys of being alive. Listen to him introduce the book and read from the first essay, “EKG.”

This month, Celia recommends three books that discuss our pasts and how we memorialize them, and how we deal with places we’ve left behind.

This month, Daley offers three bold and incisive books that confront the ominous portents of hurricane season in the Gulf South, family, and the whole big, messy project of America in equal measure.

I saw the opiate epidemic start to swallow up my home. It worked quickly and indiscriminately. Each trip back was met with news of a different friend using, or in rehab, or dealing, or in jail, or worse. But it was only after a very specific moment that I became committed to writing this book, a moment of initial frustration within myself.